Ibey has admitted to killing Savanna Pikuyak in 2022. His guilty plea to a charge of second-degree murder was refused by the Crown, so he is on trial for first-degree murder.
Before he killed and allegedly sexually assaulted his new housemate, Nikolas Ibey spent eight hours searching the internet for local sex workers, the jury heard this week at Ibey’s first-degree murder trial.
Ottawa police extracted data from Ibey’s cellphone following his arrest on Sept. 11, 2022, that detailed an exhaustive search for “escorts” that began around 7 p.m. the previous evening and continued until 3 a.m.
At 9 a.m., after a six-hour gap in activity, Ibey’s Google search terms changed to: “How long is jail time for murder?”
Ibey, 35, has admitted to killing 22-year-old Savanna Pikuyak, who had just moved into the apartment at 34C Woodvale Green after leaving her home in Nunavut to pursue nursing studies at Algonquin College.
Ibey, who is represented by defence lawyers Ewan Lyttle and Maggie McCann, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder at the outset of his trial on Nov. 12, but that plea was rejected by the Crown. He has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder.
Crown attorneys Michael Purcell and Sonia Beauchamp presented the jury with a volume of evidence extracted from the laptops and cellphones seized from the crime scene, including Ibey’s Samsung Galaxy phone.
Ibey conducted 167 searches for nine different key words in that eight-hour time frame, made 800 visits to 160 distinct sex websites and engaged in 53 “sex chat” conversations, exchanging 965 messages with sex workers that night, according to testimony from Ottawa Police Service crime intelligence analyst Alyson Yaraskovitch.
Evening Update
He contacted several sex workers that night, sent e-transfers as deposits for several failed encounters and procured the services of one sex worker who showed up at his apartment around 1 a.m.
The woman, whose identity is shielded by a publication ban, testified Friday about the awkward encounter, saying Ibey, sitting fully naked on his bed in the downstairs apartment, was unable to maintain an erection and soon called off the engagement.
He paid her in full and sent her home, the woman testified, though Ibey later complained in a text message that he should have only paid her half the amount for the minimum half-hour appointment.
“He was really embarrassed about it,” the woman testified. “He said he couldn’t get an erection because of the drugs. He said he didn’t think it was gonna happen and told me I could leave.”
She noticed about six lines of cocaine on Ibey’s dresser and said he drank beer and snorted cocaine during the 15 minutes she was there.
Ibey sat hunched in the prisoner’s box throughout the woman’s testimony, occasionally cradling his forehead in his hands. The woman no longer works in the sex trade, she told court.
Ibey had connected with other sex workers before and after the failed encounter that night, according to the Crown’s timeline of his text messages and search history.
He sent a deposit to another sex worker around 10:30 p.m. on Sept. 10, but was told she was accepting “in-calls only tonight.”
Ibey complained he was “really high” and too drunk to drive to her apartment and texted back: “Thanks for stiffing me.”
He sent another e-transfer deposit to a different sex worker around 2 a.m., which also left Ibey frustrated after she demanded more money up front, then cut off contact.
Superior Court Justice Robert Maranger cautioned the jury about the graphic, X-rated language in the evidence and warned against making the inference that Ibey’s behaviour “could be considered discreditable conduct or ‘bad character’ evidence” against him.
“The evidence is being presented for a specific purpose, which is to show the state of mind of the accused leading up to the death of Savanna Pikuyak and as evidence of a possible motive being alleged by the Crown,” Maranger said.
“It cannot be used as evidence that, because (Ibey) engaged in this behaviour, he’s more likely to have committed the offence charged or that he’s the type of person to commit the offence because of this behaviour.”
After he was spurned in his last attempt to procure a sex worker that night, according to his search history, Ibey turned his attention to pornographic websites. He ended his search for an escort at 2:59 a.m.
According to the Crown’s theory of the case, Ibey sexually assaulted, beat and strangled Pikuyak to death between 3 a.m. and 9 a.m. on Sept. 11.
He logged into his phone again at 9:03 a.m. and searched for “the difference between first-degree murder, second-degree murder and manslaughter.”
He also looked up the Criminal Code of Canada and perused an Ottawa Citizen article and photo gallery from 2016 profiling the Ottawa-Carleton Detention Centre, titled, “Take a tour inside Ottawa’s notorious jail.”
He sent a text to his father, James Ibey, saying “hi” at 9:35 a.m. He then went back to searching for information on “first-degree murder sentences.” He then searched for “Kingston penitentiary.”
He confessed to the killing in another text to his father at 9:56 a.m.
“I’m in big, big trouble,” he wrote. “I got into the booze and drugs last night and killed my roommate.”
The trial continues.
Our website is your destination for up-to-the-minute news, so make sure to bookmark our homepage and sign up for our newsletters so we can keep you informed.
